Park Board poised to spend $1.37 million on river parcel

Artist image of riverfront parks along NE Marshall St. near the BNSF Railway bridge.

Minneapolis park officials are planning to vote Wednesday on adding another key upper riverfront parcel to their holdings, the first since the Park Board adopted the RiverFirst 20-year plan for developing parks.

The proposed $1.37 million purchase of 1720 NE Marshall St. would add 354 feet of riverfront and an area about one and one-third football fields in size. The former factory property is the largest located in a strip alongside the river between the BNSF Railway bridge and Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lodge.

A 20-year plan adopted by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in March calls for developing a Northeast Riverfront Park between the bridge and the existing Marshall Terrace Park. The land would become part of a proposed riverfront trail system.

According to a staff memo, the Park Board plans to finance the purchase from its riverfront development fund, which has $1.25 million available, and is also seeking funding from the Metropolitan Council and the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization.

Minneapolis police said they have linked two weekend shootings, which left residents frightened and sent some diving to the floor to avoid stray bullets, to an early-morning homicide last week that left a father of two dead on the city's North Side.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said his biggest regret as the county's top prosecutor was using grand juries to investigate the shootings of civilians by police, admitting that the process lacked transparency.

Meeting for the first time since the presidential election, the Minneapolis City Council on Friday affirmed their support for the city's minority groups and denounced policies they anticipate from President-elect Donald Trump's administration.